Hi,
using binary compare I have found about 8000 duplicates. To avoid selecting and deleting over 4000 books I wish to use "automatic deletion" but I have seen it deletes only the book file and not the record entry. Then I have to manually merge one by one.
Is there a way to automatically merge book entries ?

If you just want to delete the now empty entries, and a) they don't contain info you specifically want to merge into the entry you kept, and b) those entries now contain no formats (that is, no book files) c) you don't have other arbitrary book entries with no formats, then you can just search for 'formats:false'

If any of a through c are the case, you'll need to probably either do it manually, or somehow mark those and exclude them. Or perhaps search by date modified? Something like 'formats:false and last_modified:=today' (or whatever date you run the find duplicates).

I am trying to find a way to "cleanly" remove a list of authors from a given library. I know there are some 'workarounds' involving going directly to Calibre folders and deleting them, but before I go down that road, I want to make sure I am exhausting my options within Calibre and this plugin.

- I have a large list of authors names in a simple ascii text file, one name per line.

- I would like to compare those names against my library and delete any authors and their associated titles within that library.

The most obvious approach to me was to use the "Find Duplicates" and "Import List" plugins as follows:

1. Using the Import List plugin, I create a new library based on the external list of authors names I want to remove.

2. This library now exists with the following content--
Author = Last, First
Title = First Last (dummy title data)
Format = Epub (used 'add empty file' control to add epub to all records)

This library appears to Calibre to be normal, passes all checks, etc.

Next, I use the Find Duplicates plugin to locate duplicate authors:

1. Open the main library with the authors I want to have removed.

2. Open the Find 'Library' Duplicates selection

3. Change the "Title" control to "Ignore", and set the "Author" control to "Similar"

When I run this config, it does find the duplicate authors. I can view the list, copy to clipboard, and save a log of the matching authors.

However, when I click on "OK" on the resulting dialog box, then go to "Virtual Library" and select "Current Search", I get "Error: There is no current search to use".

This works for any other duplicate library searches...why not this one?

Is it because I am setting the "Title" control to "Ignore"? If so, is there a way around that?

I just need the Virtual Library to show the search results (matching author names) so I can then easily delete them.

I've been using this to fix issues all day, within singular libraries and across them, but when I ran it again to confirm, all of my progress was undone. Did I miss a step?

@taratears - I don't think the plugin itself will fix anything, all it does is find things that might need fixing.

A duplicate pair might be due to incorrect metadata on one of the books, or they may be the same book in different formats, or the same book with different translator/language/whatever, or different editions of the same book... etc. Each duplicate requires the user to take appropriate action, such as: change metadata, merge the books, delete a book, do nothing.

The only 'fix' the plugin can do is to mark a duplicate group as an 'exemption' so that it doesn't get reported in subsequent runs of the plugin - but using that option can lead to confusion regarding Marking of books.

It will find binary duplicates which is a very nice feature. You can also use it to find eBooks with similar or the same title/author and that can help to find the same book you have different versions or different formats.

@taratears - I don't think the plugin itself will fix anything, all it does is find things that might need fixing.

A duplicate pair might be due to incorrect metadata on one of the books, or they may be the same book in different formats, or the same book with different translator/language/whatever, or different editions of the same book... etc. Each duplicate requires the user to take appropriate action, such as: change metadata, merge the books, delete a book, do nothing.

The only 'fix' the plugin can do is to mark a duplicate group as an 'exemption' so that it doesn't get reported in subsequent runs of the plugin - but using that option can lead to confusion regarding Marking of books.

So what do you mean by "using this to fix issues all day"

BR

Sorry for being unclear, I used it to find issues, then corrected them by fixing the discrepancies in author and title sorts that it was picking up on, and deleting the outright duplicates as I found them. When I was done, I re ran the plugin, and they seemed to be gone. At a later date during the day, I ran it on the same library and they were all there again.

@taratears - that suggests something external to calibre is interfering, by restoring the library to a prior state

Which OS and are you using - Windows, OSX or Linux - and which version/flavour of

What version of calibre are you using - if Windows is it 32bit, 64 bit or Portable

Where is your library located - on a local drive, and/or a network device (server, NAS etc), and/or cloud storage (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive etc). If it's anything other than local then that could be the cause, see ==>> Do not put your calibre library on a networked drive.

Do you run any always on file synchronisation services - Time Machine, Resilio, Free File Synch's RealTime Synch etc.

@taratears - that suggests something external to calibre is interfering, by restoring the library to a prior state

Which OS and are you using - Windows, OSX or Linux - and which version/flavour of

What version of calibre are you using - if Windows is it 32bit, 64 bit or Portable

Where is your library located - on a local drive, and/or a network device (server, NAS etc), and/or cloud storage (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive etc). If it's anything other than local then that could be the cause, see ==>> Do not put your calibre library on a networked drive.

Do you run any always on file synchronisation services - Time Machine, Resilio, Free File Synch's RealTime Synch etc.

BR

Win 10, 64 bit, and when I ran the plugin it was 3.4.0, as it was the then current version, its on local drive, in the standard windows documents folder. I don't use a synchronization service. Since then, I've updated to the new version.

Win 10, 64 bit, and when I ran the plugin it was 3.4.0, as it was the then current version, its on local drive, in the standard windows documents folder. I don't use a synchronization service. Since then, I've updated to the new version.

Hmmm

Might you have made the changes to something like "D:\Backup\Documents\My Library". And when you looked again later you were looking at "C:\<whatever>\Documents\My Library" - the name under the library icon would be My Library in both cases.

Might you have made the changes to something like "D:\Backup\Documents\My Library". And when you looked again later you were looking at "C:\<whatever>\Documents\My Library" - the name under the library icon would be My Library in both cases.

BR

I have two libraries at the moment, that have entirely separate contents, rather than being backups. I'm setting up to merge them, basically. However, I redid the same process I did yesterday, on a handful of books, after the update today, and the changes have held so far. If something comes up again, I'll let you know. Thank you very much for your prompt replies.

I have two libraries at the moment, that have entirely separate contents, rather than being backups. I'm setting up to merge them, basically. However, I redid the same process I did yesterday, on a handful of books, after the update today, and the changes have held so far. If something comes up again, I'll let you know. Thank you very much for your prompt replies.

Maybe something did a System Restore - have you been having any hardware or other system problems?

Quote:

Originally Posted by taratears

Quick question, can the library compare mark duplicates in the same fashion?

Not to my knowledge. In the past I did have libraries with lots of duplicates. I used calibre server to view the duplicate items in the 'other' library to help me decide what to do about them. Not sure how that would work out with the new server.

Maybe something did a System Restore - have you been having any hardware or other system problems?

Not to my knowledge. In the past I did have libraries with lots of duplicates. I used calibre server to view the duplicate items in the 'other' library to help me decide what to do about them. Not sure how that would work out with the new server.

BR

Nope, no hardware. or system issues, and no Windows based updates, nor have I installed anything else, in terms of other programs. I'll keep a eye out, but for now, it seems to be running smoothly. As for the second library, I figured out a way to get done what I needed to. This plugin is brilliant, thank you.